


When All You Can Do Is Pray

by miss_grey



Series: The Mountain Verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_grey/pseuds/miss_grey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester had never felt so helpless in his life....</p>
            </blockquote>





	When All You Can Do Is Pray

         

 

            Sam Winchester was up with the sun, unable to sleep despite the exhaustion still plaguing his body.  He’d left the hospital reluctantly the night before, ill at ease with leaving his brother alone.  The rational part of his brain had reminded him that Dean was in the best possible place for care and there was nothing more that Sam could do at the time, so he’d left without incident.  He drove all the way back out to the mountain to drop Castiel off at his home before he’d returned to his and Dean’s cramped motel room to pass out for however long he could manage.  Blessedly, he’d been able to sleep without dreaming, but the curl of anxiety in his belly would not be banished, so he’d heaved himself out of bed and into a long, hot shower to wake him up and to soothe the ache from his body.

            He knew, clinically, that Dean would make a full recovery; that the injuries he’d suffered would heal in time with the right sort of care, which he would provide his brother no matter how much Dean bitched about it.  But the thing was… he couldn’t scrub the images of the day before from behind his eyes nor erase the feelings swirling behind his ribcage and in the pit of his gut. 

            Reality: he’d almost lost Dean.  And for what?  A stupid mistake, a bit of misplaced bravado.  “ _Stupid,_ ” Sam hissed as he pulled a clean t-shirt over his head.  He’d never felt so hopeless as he had when he realized the boulders were too heavy for him to lift and he couldn’t free his brother on his own.  That he would have to _leave Dean_ in order to help him.  And granted, they were from out of town, but they still should have known better about the storms.  The locals throughout this part of the country had warned them about the regularity, the _danger_ of the monsoon.  Hell, they’d driven through enough storms that they’d _seen_ the kind of damage a good downpour could cause.  And yet… rain was the furthest thing from Sam’s mind as he’d left Dean and raced as fast as he could down the mountain.  There had been no clouds in the sky at that point, just clear blue and sunshine.  It had come out of nowhere.  And still… they should have known better.

            Sam had reached the foothills in good time and thanked every deity in creation when he saw that he had one bar at that level.  He still remembered, word for word, his panicked conversation with the emergency operator as he explained what had happened.  He’d watched, horrified while he waited for the emergency recovery team, as a billowing tower of clouds rolled over the tops of the mountains and surged, sparking with lighting, into the valley.  It had already begun to rain by the time the crew arrived.  He’d been ready to run again, to get to Dean, but they’d held him back, told him that they had to wait out the storm.  To crawl upward into the canyons right now would be nothing short of suicide.  Sam hadn’t cared—he’d physically struggled against them, until one of the rescue crew, a gruff, older man, had threatened to sedate him.  Sam had explained, voice shaking and teary-eyed, that his brother was trapped in one of those canyons, his leg pinned so that he couldn’t get to higher ground.  Their looks of sympathetic understanding would haunt Sam for the rest of his life.

            Sam had prayed then.  He’d dropped to his knees in the mud and prayed to anyone who might be listening that Dean, by some miracle, would make it through this alive.  His mind kept flashing back to images of the canyon, steep and narrow, and Dean, anchored to the bottom of it.  Sam wanted to puke, but he managed to hold it down: to do so felt too much like acceptance.  And he wouldn’t give in; not now, not ever. 

            Sam prayed the entire way up the mountain, as he scrabbled through the thick tangle of trees and shrubbery.  Prayed, with his heart in his throat, when he saw the destruction that the storm had wreaked upon one of the smaller canyons; whole trees had been ripped out at the roots and carried downstream, left strewn across the ravine now that the water had receded.  Only shallow pools remained, deceptive of the fury that had come before.

            He’d stumbled as they’d reached the canyon, pouring light along the floor of the narrow ravine.  His heart stopped when he saw no trace of his brother; even the pile of rocks had been swept away.  He’d choked out his brother’s name, a last, desperate plea, and he’d heard it then: a voice not his brother’s, calling for help, halfway up the canyon wall.

 

* * *

 

 

            It was 9am and visiting hours had officially started, so Sam clutched his cup of mediocre drive-thru coffee and made his way down the sterile-smelling white hallways of the hospital to reassure himself that his brother was really going to be okay.

            The front desk staff were very efficient about directing Sam to his brother’s room and the medical professionals he passed by gave him soft smiles.  He wondered, vaguely, if they were taught to do that or whether it was simply inherent in their personality types.

            The door to Dean’s room was already cracked open when he arrived and he could hear soft muttering from inside, so he gave one cursory knock and then squeezed in, sidling around the curtain that was drawn around Dean’s bed.  Dean faced the other direction but when Sam gave a tentative “Hey, Dean,” his brother rolled his head on the pillow to look at him. 

            Dean was pale and one side of his face, from his jaw to his hairline, was bruised purple.  He was wearing one of those generic hospital gowns and various tubes for IVs and monitors disappeared into his loose sleeves.  His left leg was resting above the blankets, propped up to reduce the swelling.  The white cast started before the hem of the hospital gown and extended down to the end of the foot, so that only Dean’s toes poked out.  He looked like a wreck, honestly, with bruises and scrapes mottling his visible skin, but Sam knew it could have been much worse, and so he was thankful.

            Dean smiled lazily at him, and blinked in slow motion.  “Heeeey Sammy.  There you are.  Did I die?”

            “ _What_?!”  Sam yelped, sloshing his coffee.

            Dean continued to grin at him, completely unconcerned.  “I think I saw an angel.  Dark hair.  Blue eyes.”  Dean sighed, frowning slightly, and Sam watched as his brother’s chest rose and fell in sync with the beeping of machines.  “But he didn’t tell me his name.”  Dean murmured.

            Sam huffed, shaking his head and taking a seat in one of the hard plastic-covered chairs next to the bed.  “His name is Castiel, Dean.  He saved you.”

            Dean smiled again, the movement a slow lazy pull of his lips.  “You met the angel, Sammy?”  His eyes slid shut and he huffed a breath.  “He was a miracle.”  Dean drawled, before his face went slack.  Within moments, he’d started drooling on his pillow.

            Sam shook his head in amused affection, a small smile forming on his lips.  “I can’t wait ‘til you’re off the good drugs so I can remind you that you said all of this.”  Sam remained with his brother for a few more minutes, until he was content that Dean would sleep peacefully, and then he went in search of the doctor.

 

* * *

 

 

            The doctor on duty, a different man from the night before, very patiently went over Dean’s chart with Sam at a station in the hallway.  It was a good thing, too, because Sam only vaguely remembered what the doctor had told him the night before, he’d been so exhausted, his brain fried from the rush of adrenaline and its subsequent departure.

            Apparently, as this doctor noted, Dean had been very lucky.  He had indeed broken his leg, but the bone hadn’t punctured the skin like they’d originally thought.  They’d been able to reset it and were hopeful that it would heal without surgery.  The doctor made sure to point out that his generally was not the case in situations like this, but Dean’s body, luckily, seemed rather resilient for his age.  He would, however, likely need weeks to months of physical therapy after the cast came off in order to regain his former strength and range of movement, or at least, as much as he could hope to regain after such a severe injury.  The doctor gave Sam a stern look then, over his glasses, and said “Honestly, recovery depends a lot on the cooperation of the patient, Mr. Winchester.”  Like he just _knew_ that Dean is a stubborn son of a bitch.  But Sam had only smiled back reassuringly and said “I promise we’ll do whatever it takes to get him back on his feet again, doctor.”  _Even if it meant tying Dean down until he healed,_ but the doctor didn’t need to know that.

 

* * *

 

 

            _Well,_ Sam thought to himself as he left the doctor, _what are we going to do now_?  He and Dean had been on an extended road trip for months now, driving across America, doing whatever they felt like on the way.  After their father’s death and the turbulent after-math less than six months before, Sam had felt like he was losing it.  So he’d decided to take some time off school.  He didn’t know what he was going to do instead, he just knew that he couldn’t stick around and pretend like everything was okay.  When he’d told Dean, his big brother had done what he had always done: he’d dropped everything and been there for Sam.  He’d quit his job at the shop and emptied his savings account.  When he’d shown up at Sam’s door with the Impala ready to go, Sam had rolled his eyes, but nevertheless threw a duffle in the trunk next to Dean’s.  And that’s what they’d been doing ever since.

            Now, though?  Their credit cards were nearly maxed and they were running out of funds.  There was no way that Dean could drive the Impala with his leg in a cast and Sam knew that if he offered to drive, Dean would bitch about it until the day the cast came off.  He’d rather avoid that scenario, thank you very much.  So, where did that leave them?  They could leave, find someplace to lay low until Dean healed up, but where?  They had no place to go, not really.  Or, they could find a short lease in town, settle in, and Sam could get a part time job until Dean was healthy enough to travel again.  Sam pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the oncoming headache.  He’d deal with it when he had to; until then, he’d stay with his brother and laugh at the strange things Dean said until he was lucid again.

            Speaking of… Sam realized that with all of the chaos of the night before, he’d dropped off Castiel without any sort of contact information.  He knew it was a lost cause to ask one of the nurses but Sam suddenly wished he had the other man’s phone number.  Well, maybe after he left the hospital later this afternoon, Sam would drive out to the mountain to see how the other man was faring and to thank him, once again, now that Sam wasn’t in a full-blown panic.

 

* * *

 

 

            As luck would have it, however, Sam didn’t need to.  When he returned to Dean’s room after wolfing down a sandwich in the hospital cafeteria, he was startled to see that there was someone else already in the room.  “Oh, uh…” He started, unsure who else might be there.  But his voice caught the attention of the other man and when he turned, Sam’s eyes widened.  “Castiel?  What are you doing here?”

            The other man rose from the seat that Sam had previously occupied, smoothing wrinkles from his jeans as he did so.  “My apologies, Sam.  I came by to check on your brother.”

            Sam smiled easily then and strode into the room.  “I can see that.  You could have just called or something, you know?”

            Castiel frowned, nodding.  “I know.  But… for some reason, I could not concentrate on work this morning.  I felt the need to know that Dean was going to be alright.”  He lowered his eyes then and fiddled with the hem of his worn gray t-shirt, and Sam took the opportunity to observe him.  He looked much different when he wasn’t soaking wet and covered in mud.  His hair stuck up at strange angles now that it wasn’t plastered to his head with rain.  He was tall, though not near as tall as Sam, with a lean build, like a runner.  His skin, where it wasn’t covered in his own bruises and scrapes, was lightly tanned.  When he finally raised his eyes back to Sam’s, he remembered his brother’s words.  _Blue_. 

            Sam cleared his throat and dropped a comforting hand onto Castiel’s shoulder, saying “It’s no problem, man.  I’m sure Dean would appreciate you stopping by.”  Castiel looked back at the prone figure of Dean and he nodded absently.  “So, uh, how are you?”

            Castiel shrugged.  “A little worse for wear but, overall, I am fine.”

            “I wanted to thank you again, for what you did.  For Dean and, well…and for me.  He’s my big brother, and he’s all I’ve got left.”

            Castiel turned his big blue eyes to Sam again and Sam felt as if the man could see through him.  Like maybe he already knew.  He gave a soft nod and said, “You’re welcome.  I am only glad that I found him when I did.”

            They were silent for a while after that, simply watching the slow rise and fall of Dean’s breaths, taking comfort in the fact that he was alive.  Then Sam murmured, “So, listen, I don’t know if it’d be weird for you or something, but would you mind maybe visiting again sometime?  I think Dean would like to talk to you—he was asking for you earlier, you know?”

            Castiel’s lips quirked slightly on one side in the faintest hint of a smile.  “Was he?”  He shifted on his feet for a moment before deciding “It wouldn’t be a problem, Sam.  I’d like to speak to him as well.  How much longer will your brother be here?”

            Sam shrugged.  “The doctor said they’d release him as soon as they were sure the concussion wouldn’t give him any problems.  So maybe later today, or tomorrow?”

            Castiel nodded slowly.  “Alright.  Well, we should exchange phone numbers in any case.  And if you’d be willing to write down your address for me, I wouldn’t mind stopping by.”

            Sam flushed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.  “Uh, we’re currently at the Motel 6 just outside of town on the highway.”  A line formed between Castiel’s brows and Sam hurried to explain “We’re not from around here.  We were on a road trip.  Just, uh… just passing through.”

            Castiel turned back to Dean then, his frown deepening.  “And what will you do now?”

            Sam shrugged, feeling that surge of helplessness again.  “Settle in for a while, I guess.  The doctor made it sound like Dean’s recovery might take a while.”

            Castiel made a sound of understanding and then said “Well, if you need anything, give me a call.  I’d be happy to help.”  Then he took a step toward the bed, like he wanted to touch Dean, but stopped, suddenly changing his mind.  He gave Sam a curt nod, said, “I’ll be in touch,”  And then he spun on his heel and left the hospital room.  Sam watched him go, brows wrinkled in confusion, then he shook his head, deciding to brush it off for now.  He turned back to the sleeping form of his brother and smiled warmly, murmuring “Dean, will wonders never cease?  I think you’ve just made a friend.”


End file.
